Walking Beside Me
by StarWarrior72
Summary: Darth Vader has only one chance to save his son. Too bad that Luke can't know about it. Oneshot.


Walking beside me, Luke stumbled. I fought my reflexes not to catch him. His small, battered hands caught him just in time. I stood and waited as he dragged himself back to his feet.

I'm leading my son to die. In this place, there isn't necessarily a physical destination. The Imperial simply has to lead the rebel through the snow until the rebel is overwhelmed by the cold and dies. It won't take too long, poor boy.

Luke is wearing rags, and he doesn't have shoes. With so little to protect him from the cold of this forest, he'll probably be dead long before we reach our destination. I had three choices of where to take him.

The first was a mile from our starting point. There he would have been tortured until he died. The second was three miles from where we started. There he would have been shot dead. The third is where I'm trying to lead him. It's more than five miles from where we started. If we reach it, I can take him home.

Luke stumbled again and this time I couldn't resist the reflex to catch him and set him upright. He scowled at me.

He doesn't know who I am. That was part of the deal with my master. I would be healed, and I would be allowed to try to save my son in this way. However, I couldn't tell him who I am, or what I'm leading him to. He believes that I'm leading him to the second choice and that I'm just another imperial.

Luke managed to continue to stumble through the undergrowth. I followed, feeling terrible that I was dressed for the cold, with my old Jedi robes and boots. I could brush aside brambles, but Luke's thin arms had been torn to ribbons when he'd tried it. He had to pick his way carefully through the thickets.

We stepped into a clearing and I saw some of the tension go out of his small frame. He started to run towards the other side of the grove and I followed him. Suddenly he tripped on something, sending him sprawling.

I ran up beside him and rolled him over, shocked to see that he had managed to skin his hands, knees, elbows, and forehead in the fall. I carefully started to pick the gravel out of his forehead and saw a tear trickle down his cheek. Automatically, I brushed it aside.

"Who are you?" Luke asked.

My mind raced. I had prepared fake answers for every question I had thought of, but this one was so obvious it had slipped right past me. "Tru. Tru Veld."

"That's not a common name for a human," Luke tipped his head to the side slightly.

"I know. Will you be all right?"

"For now I am. Thank you."

I helped Luke back to his feet and he started toward the other side of the clearing, flinching with each step. I glanced over my shoulder to see that there was a trail of bloody footprints. I wanted to help Luke, carry him across the rough, rocky ground, but I couldn't.

Luke managed to drag himself about another mile, and then collapsed in a stream. I stood beside him, waiting for him to stand up. He didn't. Instead he sat in the water, crying softly and rubbing at one of his feet.

"Come along. We have somewhere to be going." I reminded him, afraid that he would sit there until he died.

"Why bother? I can just stay here to die, can't I?" he looked up from his tattered foot.

"We have to keep going." I reached for his arm. He pulled away and slipped farther into the water.

"Why? What's so much better about being shot? I'd rather die here, with nature."

I sat on a nearby rock. Luke still seemed to be unwilling to stand. He sat in the freezing water, pulling pieces of gravel out of the badly bloodied bottom of his foot. Tears continued to trickle down his cheeks.

Finally, he started to shiver, unable to deny his body's cold.

"Come here, Luke." I told him. He turned to me, and for a second, I thought he wouldn't do it. Then he moved slowly over to me. He leaned on my knees and put his head in my lap as he continued to clean his wounds.

I watched as he cleared his left foot of gravel, and then began to clean out his right foot. Suddenly, he sniffled.

"Are you-" I stopped. Asking if he was all right was stupid. He obviously wasn't. "What's making you cry?"

"I'm going to die." Luke closed his eyes and stopped picking at the gravel.

I didn't answer. There was nothing to say.

"I'm scared. Everything hurts. I'm cold, I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I can't stop being scared, or cold, or tired, or hungry."

I nodded.

"And that's not even the worst part. You know what the worst part is?"

"No."

"He never even came to say goodbye."

"Who?" I caressed his head.

"My father. He left me to die. He didn't even bother to say goodbye."

My heart twisted. "I'm sorry, Luke." I was sorry.

"I really, really want him right now." Luke's voice was a semi-controlled whimper.

I rubbed one of his arms, trying to warm him up any way I could. "I'm sure you do."

The tiny bit of control he had had vanished. "Where is he? Why isn't he here? Why do I have to be alone?"

I lied. Just a little, white lie, said to make something hurt less. "He's in the middle of a battle. He wanted to be with you." As I said it, I realized that it was true. I was battling will against rules. And I wanted desperately for him to know I was with him.

Luke stopped crying instantly. "He's fighting. Of course. Somehow I always thought that if one of us died, the other one would be safe. Like he was the only one who could kill me, and I was the only one who could kill him. Except that I'm not dying at his hand, and he could die today too. Ask him to stop fighting, please. When I'm gone, I just want to know he'll be safe."

I picked Luke up, out of the water, and held him. He didn't question. Small whimpers were starting again.

"I'll do my best." I promised.

"I want my daddy."

"I know you do."

"I never even knew him."

"Yes you did. You've spoken to him."

"I've spoken to my _father_. My daddy was dead before I was born. Maybe I never even had a daddy. Maybe he never _was_ Anakin. Maybe only Vader ever existed. Maybe Anakin is just another lie.

I didn't want him to believe that. Vader and Anakin were one and the same. And I was still with him. I hated my master's commands. I hated my inability to ignore them. I hated myself for being like that, and I hated Luke for seeing me this way.

"Anakin existed." I told him.

"Then where is he now?"

"I don't know."

"You promise you'll ask my father to stop fighting?"

"I already promised, Luke."

"If you can't convince him, will you at least try to protect him?"

"I'll do everything in my power to keep him safe."

"Do you think he'll survive?" I could feel Luke's breath on my neck.

"He has survived almost thirty years of fighting."

"I just hope he can make it through today."

"I hope so too, for your sake."

Luke sniffled and looked at me pathetically. "You know, I used to daydream about growing up."

"Most children have," I told him.

"It was never like this."

I shook my head.

"In my imagination, I never came here. For a child who thought he knew Death so well, it never occurred to me that I would die. Growing up just stopped when I had kids, I guess. Like you then reached some kind of immortality. Immortality is just a dream. I used to honestly believe that we would find a cure for death before I died."

"I'm sorry, Luke."

"Science has disappointed me. It's happened before. When I was tiny, I believed that they would find a cure for people who were already dead, and then I'd get my parents. When I found out that I still had a father, but he was so badly hurt, I wanted science to heal him. Science didn't bring my family back, and my father is maimed. I should just accept it. It's- it's just… I want him to be okay. I just want him to be safe, and happy. If that means that I'm dead, then I guess that's it."

I wrapped my arms tighter around him. I was longing to tell him that I was healed, and I was with him, and I didn't want him dead. That would just get both of us killed.

"I wish life was a daydream. I wish nothing bad ever happened. I want everything to have a nice, obvious solution."

"Luke, if life were a daydream, there would be nothing precious about it. If you can't lose something, you're far less likely to properly appreciate it."

"I suppose."

"We have to get going." I reminded him, feeling like a monster for rushing him.

Luke stood up and flinched as his newly cleaned feet were instantly covered in wet, gritty sand. I looked at the river he had sat in. We had to cross it, but Luke wasn't strong enough. I picked him up and carried him across the rapids.

"I could be killed for that." I told him softly as I put him on the bank at the other side.

Luke looked at me in sudden horror. "What made you do it then? I don't want to have your blood on my hands!" He threw himself to the ground and didn't move, save for the shaking of his shoulders as he cried.

I knelt beside him, "Luke, it was my choice. You're from Tatooine, so I assumed that you can't swim. I thought you would be scared if you were swept away by water."

"That's irrelevant!" Luke wailed, "I would rather be killed by the water than know that I killed you!"

I set him back on his feet and led him on into the forest. He followed, shivering.

What the heck. If I'm going to die for the comfort I've given him already, I may as well do everything in my power to make him happy. I took off my cloak and wrapped him in it. I tried to tell him who I was, but something held me back.

One of his small hands slipped through the sleeve and fell short, with only the fingertips poking out. I helped him get it around his other arm. He wrapped his arms tightly around his body, feeling the rough fabric of the cloak in his fingers.

I pulled the hood over his matted hair and he stood still for a moment, hugging himself.

"Why are you being so kind to me?"

"Luke, you deserve better than the treatment you're receiving here. I just want to make your ordeal a little bit less painful if I can."

"Why?"

"Do you feel that an Imperial can't possibly be a good enough person to want to decrease a child's suffering?"

"That's the only side Imperials have shown me until now."

I put my arm around him and led him on into the forest. Luke walked in silence for a few minutes.

"Sir?"

"Tru." I told him.

"Sorry, Tru. Has anyone you loved ever died?"

"Yes."

"Where do you think they went?"

"Somewhere better."

"What do you think it looks like?"

"I think that they go to some alternate universe. They are reunited with their families who have died, but they can look down on the people they love, and help to protect them."

An image flashed in my mind. Padme gazed down on me and Luke, smiling sadly and shaking her head.

"You think I'll be able to protect my father?"

"I know you will, if you want to."

"Thank you. I feel a bit better now." Luke brushed his tears away with his sleeve and started walking faster again. I was disappointed when he decided to slow down, and mortified when he asked the next question he had on his mind.

"Tru, do you think I did something wrong?"

My heart sank. "What do you mean?"

"Did I do something to deserve to be left by my father?"

"Luke, I know you don't want to hear this, but your father is a very unstable person. He could probably plead insanity for most of his crimes. Almost nothing he does is based on logic, I'm sure you're not one of the few exceptions."

"So he and my mom didn't want a son?"

"That's not what I meant and you know it," I told him. "I meant his treatment of you."

"He always seems terribly calculating to me." Luke said quietly.

I put my arm around him and helped him walk. When I told him who I was, I wanted it to change his opinion of me, for the better. "You're going to be okay, Luke, I promise."

"How can I possibly be okay? I'm going to die, and I never even got the chance to say goodbye to my own father." Luke looked down at his bare feet.

"Just trust me. You can make it." I supported him a little more, and he stumbled on, bravely. I managed to lead my son up to the hanger to leave, and wrapped my arms around him, kissing his forehead.

"We made it, Luke. We made it. You're gonna come home now, okay?"

"I," Luke faltered, "I'm glad we made it, but what do you mean we're going to go home? I don't have a home to go to. They're not going to kill you, are they? I don't want you to die! You've been so kind to me!" He burst into tears.

I released him slightly, "Luke, it's me. Your father. I'm here now, Luke. I'm gonna take you home, all right?"

Luke sniffled helplessly, "Really? I-I can come home with you? You're not gonna let them kill me?"

"It was never my intention to kill you. I came to take you home."

"But… what about the forest? What was that about? It hurt!"

"I had to. In the forest, there were two other buildings. I had to save you. The others would have killed you. The first would have tortured the life out of you, and the second would have shot you as I told you I was leading you to. I'm going to protect you now, do you hear?"

"I hear. I'm just having a bit of trouble believing, that's all."

"I'll take you home; let's see if that will make you feel that this is what it seems to be." I drew him close again, and then moved him so that he could walk beside me, snuggled against my side. On the way to the ship, he cried. When we mounted the ramp to the cockpit, he stumbled again, and I caught him then picked him up.

I happily flew home with my son curled beside me. It was so good to know that he was safe. So, so good. The tears on his cheeks, the way his shoulders shook, and the small gasps for air made it all so real. He was my son, and he was with me. And in those moments, that was all I needed.


End file.
